456 Anayses of Books. [Dec. 



It is unnecessary to add to this list of differences, as these 

 render the errors sufficiently apparent. Whence they arise, I am 

 at a loss to conjecture ; but they are considerable enough to 

 be detected upon even imperfect specimens by the common 

 goniometer. H. J. Brooke. 



Article IX. 



Analyses of Books. 



A Critical Examination of the first Principles of Geology; in a 

 Series of Essays. By G. B. Greenough, President of the 

 Geological Society, F\R.S. F.L.S. London. 



(Concluded from p. 373.) 



III. On the Inequalities whichexisted on the Surface of the Earth 

 previously to diluvian Action, and on the Causes of these Ine- 

 qualities. 



In the second essay the author gave us his opinions relative 

 to the causes of the inequalities which diversify the present 

 surface of the earth ; but as the operation of these causes must 

 have been greatly modified by the form of the surface on which 

 they acted, he has thought it requisite in the third essay to inquire 

 into the figure of the earth before the deluge, to which in the 

 preceding essay he ascribed the present inequalities of the 

 surface. 



Was the antediluvian earth a level plain, or was it like the 

 present, diversified with mountains and valleys ? 



Stracey, Hutchinson, and many of the earlier writers, adopted 

 the former opinion ; but our author thinks that it is untenable. 

 The mixture of the fossil remains of sea animals and wood in 

 the secondary rocks demonstrates that the earth at the time of 

 the formation of these rocks was partly sea and partly dry land, 

 as at present. Hence it must have been diversified into moun- 

 tain and valley. 



The antediluvian earth then was uneven in its surface, as is 

 the case at present. To what must we ascribe this inequality ? 

 Our author assigns four causes. 



1. Crystallization. — By this term is usually meant the regular 

 shape into which the integrant particles of various substances 

 arrange themselves, in consequence, as is supposed, of a certain 

 polarity with which they are endowed. Thus the integrant 

 particles of alum form regular octahedrons, those of common 

 salt cubes, &c. Prof. Jameson supposes the earth to be crystal- 

 lized in this sense, and the different strata to be crystalline lamina?. 

 But this notion, which seems to have been taken up without 

 due reflection, is at variance with every principle of crystallo- 



